


the quiet things that no one ever knows

by cherylbombshells



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Gen, and her wisdom is finally appreciated, another post Mombie Dearest fic, but she's discussed endlessly, penelope doesn't actually appear in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 14:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17346884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherylbombshells/pseuds/cherylbombshells
Summary: As their birthday winds down, Josie and Lizzie have an overdue talk about Penelope.





	the quiet things that no one ever knows

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short little fic about a conversation I couldn't get out of my head. I find all three characters involved - their hang ups and their motivations - really fascinating, and I wanted to try my hand at exploring them a little bit. Hope the characterization is okay, I'm usually more involved in a fandom before I try writing for it, but here we are.

 

Lizzie doesn't say anything as they make their back to their room.

They’d been silent when they walked their father back to his office too, but it feels heavier now, somehow.

Because she’s more than just quiet; she seems withdrawn, reserved, numb.

Josie keeps looking over at her as they walk, expecting something to change in the short time it takes to get from their father’s office to their room, but nothing does.

This isn’t like Lizzie - she never feels anything quietly or privately or selflessly.

(That’s how Josie feels things.)

Lizzie feels loudly and brashly and selfishly; she never hides how she feels, not for anyone; wouldn’t even think to - she always wants everyone to know.

(Not at all like Josie.)

What they just went through is big and huge and unlike anything they’ve ever had to experience, so maybe it makes sense that Lizzie would react in a way she never has before, but it’s still scaring Josie.

She doesn’t like not knowing what her sister is feeling or how, and it isn’t until they get to their room and Lizzie has already opened the door that Josie realizes she just spent that entire walk - short as it may have been - worrying about how _Lizzie_ is feeling.

Josie just had to help essentially re-kill her biological mother - a woman she didn’t know well, sure, but one she loved in a weird, hypothetical way, or at least felt like she could have - and all of her first thoughts after have been about how her _sister_ is handling the same thing.

It’s something Josie wouldn’t have even thought twice about before, if it weren’t for Penelope and the thoughts she planted in her head earlier, and she doesn’t know how she feels about that; about the possibility that Penelope might have been right after all.

Josie had been so sure she was wrong not even a few hours ago, when she’d been buried under that dirt, but now she feels that sureness a little bit less.

Yes, she had done something for herself and it had ended up with her possessed birth mother burying her alive, but before that… Before that, it had been good.

Before that, Josie got to spend time with Jo - to get to know her and bond with her - and now that she’s gone forever again, Josie can’t believe how glad she is that she got that chance - one she wouldn’t have gotten if she’d done what Lizzie had wanted instead of what she had.

So maybe it isn’t about being selfish or selfless; maybe it shouldn't be either all the time.

Maybe what it’s really about it finding a balance and keeping it; knowing the right time to be which.

(Maybe that's all Penelope had ever been trying to get her to understand all along.)

But as good as that sounds, Josie thinks, as she watches her sister's sluggish movements from across the room, she's not sure that really works if she's the only one willing to bend.

She keeps all of these thoughts to herself as she gets ready for bed, and Lizzie doesn't share what she's thinking either, and while the silence isn’t awkward, it is pained, and as they slip into bed and the quiet feels heavier, Josie finds it harder not to try.

To try to say _something_ , to make it better for her sister, some way, somehow.

Maybe now is one of those times she should be selfish and more concerned about herself, but Josie is who she is, and making Lizzie feel better will help her feel better, too.

It seems impossible to do, especially because she was clearly upset about something else even before everything that just went down, but considering her dead bio mother just rose from the dead - and tried to kill her, admittedly - _impossible_ doesn’t seem like it’s something that should deter her from trying.

“Lizzie…” Josie starts to say, the familiar name catching in her throat.

But her sister cuts her off before she can even attempt to get anything else out. “I don’t want to talk about it, Josie,” Lizzie snaps, rolling over so that her back is facing her sister.

And if Lizzie doesn’t want to talk about it, that means they won’t.

Josie doesn’t blame her, isn’t even sure she disagrees with her, so she doesn't push.

When the silence comes back, it's heavier this time and suffocating in a way it wasn’t before, and before Josie knows what she’s saying, the words are spilling out.

“I kissed Penelope,” she spits out suddenly, both to change the subject and because she just needs to talk about it, even if it’s with Lizzie - _especially_ if it’s with Lizzie; the person Josie can count on to talk some sense into her when it comes to her ex-girlfriend. “Well, she kissed me. But I kissed her back, so. Yeah. I kissed Penelope.”

Josie waits for the explosion, for Lizzie to rant and yell and tell her what an idiot she was for giving into Penelope’s tricks again, after all the work they did to get over her - she almost _hopes_ for it, because if Lizzie is focusing on her anger, then she’s not focusing on her pain, and maybe that had been Josie's plan all along, still as selfless as ever - but it never comes.

Instead, Lizzie just lays still, quiet for another moment - so quiet Josie wonders if maybe she’s fallen asleep, until she hears her ask, “When?”

“Earlier,” she answers just as quietly. “Before my shower. Before…”

Josie swallows the rest of _that_ sentence and keeps her eyes on her sister as she turns around in bed to face her again.

Even though her voice didn’t sound angry, she still expects her face to look it, but all she sees reflecting in her twin’s eyes is confusion. “Why?” the blonde asks simply.

Or, it would be a simple question under any other circumstances; for their current ones, it feels like the most complicated thing she could have asked her.

“I don’t know,” Josie admits with a pathetic sigh, fighting the urge to press her face into her pillow and scream out her frustrations - always trying to stifle her voice somehow. “I was just upset about what happened and so angry at her for it, even though it wasn’t even really her fault and she kissed me and I just…” God, Josie wishes she knew _why_. “I wanted to do something crazy and stupid for my birthday, even after everything. And it was, it was _stupid_. It was _so_ stupid, after what she did to me before, after what she just did to _you_ …”

Her words are fast and forced now, like she’s trying to recite the speech Lizzie has given her a million times before, saying it before her sister has to again; like she’s trying to remind herself of it more than she’s trying to convince Lizzie.

Except Lizzie isn’t saying any of that this time, she’s just listening to Josie say it, what she thinks she wants to hear, and then she surprises her.

“You know she did that for you, right?”

It throws Josie off track as her brain tries to catch up with her mouth. “What?”

“The election,” Lizzie elaborates, voice and inflection even, not giving anything away. “It wasn’t really to mess with me, she wasn’t really trying to do anything _to_ me.” Josie watches her with wide eyes, watches as it looks like it physically pains her sister to admit this next part. “She did it _for_ you.”

Breath hitched and brows knitted together in confusion, Josie sits up quickly to stare down at Lizzie questioningly. “What do you mean? How do you know that?”

“She told me,” Lizzie admits, sitting up to mirror her sister. “In her harsh, she-devil way. She thinks you give too much to me, that I _take_ too much from you.” The words sound like they hurt Lizzie to say, and for maybe the first time in their life, she can’t seem to meet her sister’s gaze. “And after tonight, after how I treated Jo, how I tried to make you treat her... I think maybe she was right.”

Josie shakes her head and reaches out for Lizzie’s hand, immediately trying to deny the thoughts Penelope put in her head. “No, Lizzie, you don’t…”

But Lizzie isn’t having it, not this time.

“I do,” she disagrees with her quietly, sniffling and wiping at her eyes, though Josie doesn’t see any actual tears fall when she finally looks up at her. “I… I know I’m a lot and I don’t even try to be less than that, and…” She swallows thickly, shaking her head. “Penelope’s a bitch and she’s evil, but she was right about this. She was a heinous bitch about how she did it and said it, but she was doing it for you and trying to look after you in her own evil way, so I can’t _totally_ hate her for that.” Lizzie laughs, and while it sounds painful, it also sounds genuine. “I still hate her for everything else, but not for that. So you don’t have to either.”

Josie takes in everything her sister tells her, stomach heavy and heart pounding in her chest, and she tries to make sense of it all.

It’s not hard, really, not after today; after what Penelope had said to her before the party she never ended up going to.

She’d known Penelope had a point then, as hard as it was to hear, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, and it wasn’t something she hasn’t tried to tell her before, either.

Penelope has always tried to get Josie to be her own person, but she’d always seen it for something it wasn’t; she always thought Penelope was just jealous and trying to come between her and Lizzie, when really, all she’d ever wanted was for there to be some space between them at all.

Josie feels stupid for not seeing that sooner, for not seeing that Penelope has always been looking out for her, in her own fucked up Penelope Park kinda way.

It’s easy to miss, she supposes, with all the flare Penelope hides it behind, or at least it would be for anyone else - but Josie should have known better.

Josie should have seen that everything Penelope has done has been for her, it always has been.

“Okay, so what are you saying here, Lizzie?” Josie eventually asks hesitantly, truly at a loss for why her sister is telling her this now, and even more confused as to what she’s supposed to do with this information. “That I should get back with Penelope?”

Lizzie scoffs, looking at Josie like she just said something offensive. “No, God _no_!” she exclaims loudly and emphatically. “I’m still not convinced she’s not the actual _anti-Christ_. I’m just saying… whatever you do or _don’t_ do about your kiss…” She trails off, struggling to find the right words to explain herself before she finally settles on some. “Don’t do it because of _me_. For once, do something for yourself. Consider it my birthday present to you.”

It’s been a hard night - Hell, a hard _day_ \- and Josie knows that’s why Lizzie is saying this.

She knows there’s a chance this attitude may not last until morning, and she might take it back come tomorrow, but she hopes not.

Today - and Jo and Penelope, all three together - has truly changed Josie, even if just a little; finally shown her something she maybe should have seen ages ago, but isn’t too late to see now - something that she’ll try to carry with her every day after this one.

And she can only Lizzie will do the same.

“So you didn’t get me an actual gift then?” Josie asks because she doesn't know what else to say, offering her sister a playful smile to break the serious mood.

Lizzie laughs but doesn’t answer either way; just kisses Josie on the cheek and lays back down in bed, her eyes drifting from the other girl over to the look at the time on the alarm clock.

11:54.

Lizzie’s smile stays on her face, but as she looks back over at her sister, Josie can see it’s straining. Still, she tries to keep it from falling, for Josie, and that means a lot.

She’s being selfless so that Josie can be selfish, if she wants; can go find Penelope and talk or _not talk_ , and Josie does want to, _so_ much.

But she doesn’t _need_ to, not right now.

What Josie needs to do is be here for her sister, even though for once she’s not asking her to be, because after everything, being with Lizzie is what she needs, too; the rest of it can wait until tomorrow.

Right now, Josie’s choosing to be selfish.

(Penelope will be proud.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, any feedback is appreciated.


End file.
